


The Line Between What's Good and Evil

by Little_oblivion



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Mentions of Prostitution, The Ice Queen, The Keeper - Freeform, because apparently it's in everything I write lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_oblivion/pseuds/Little_oblivion
Summary: The Keeper is fighting to rid the streets of Orlando of evil, but what can she do when her foe turns out to not be as bad as she assumed?A Krashlyn superhero/villainess one shot
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	The Line Between What's Good and Evil

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, hello, I'm AWARE that this is not the next chapter of Think of Anything, but I had to get this out of my brain so that it would allow me room to work/think/write.
> 
> This was partially inspired by a writing prompt I found on tumblr via pinterest, and I worked to write in film noir/graphic novel minus the pictures style.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> (And I promise I'll work on Think of Anything)

The citizens of Orlando were living in fear. This fight- or perhaps, if not this fight, the other fights, the fights that seemed to mirror this one, the fights that seemed to play in endless repeating loops like reruns on late night TV- was draining the very city of it’s will to live, it’s energy and life source.

The Keeper had been battling valiantly. She could always be found in the heart of the brawl. When the very bones of the city seemed to weep under the weight of destruction, you could count on finding The Keeper in the thick of it, soot smudging her face, short blonde hair brushing the tops of her shoulders as she fought, punching and throwing and hoping that one day it would all stop. 

She hadn’t always been The Keeper.

It had started the way these things always began: she was young, and shiny, and full of hope and heart. Her hazel eyes had glittered with determination. She’d wanted to do great things: perhaps she would be a policewoman, a fighter pilot, a mentor of some sort. She didn’t go by The Keeper then, she was just Ashlyn.

But as the years passed, her body turned on her. She grew tall and strong, yes, bands of muscles wrapping around her frame until all but the stupidest of men gave her a clear berth. But underneath that, the fire that had always seemed to burn within her began to grow. Suddenly it wasn’t a thing of warmth and comfort, but something that scalded, burnt, and blistered anyone who got to near.

It left her lonely.

But it also left her useful.

The first time she saw the sparks fall from the tips of her fingers, she was sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her. She was in the alleyway behind a club, she had been trying to dull her senses with alcohol so she wouldn’t feel everything quite so intensely.

(A stupid gesture, she’d think later, everyone knows that alcohol only adds heat to fire.)

Some guy had a girl against the wall. Maybe it was a date gone wrong, she had no clue. All she knew was his hand was around the girl’s throat, squeezing as she gasped for breath, begging for him to stop.

“Leave her alone,” she’d said, raising her voice to be heard over loud thump of the bass.

He’d barely turned his head. “Get lost. This doesn’t concern you.”

“I said leave her alone.”

Finally he turned, his face twisting up into a smirk as he looked at her.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’re going to have a problem.” She raised her chin, not backing down.

“Fuck off, blondie,” he laughed, taking a step back to look at the girl he still had cornered in the alley. He reached for her again, this time going for a handful of hair, and Ashlyn threw out her hand.

“Stop!” The sparks illuminated the alley, flickering against the wet, black stone of the buildings. This caught his attention again, and this time when he turned to look at her, he looked less cocky, less self assured.

“What the-“

She threw her hands out again, acting purely on instinct, and this time it wasn’t sparks but flames that curled through the air. When she realized what was going to happen she tried to pull the flames back, to save him, but it was too late.

(She wouldn’t learn how to completely tame her flames until much later, in the confines of government facility.)

As she stared at his charred corpse, she’d been brought to sickness, one hand on the wall of the building as she retched up the whiskey she’d consumed earlier. The girl edged forward, her eyes also unable to leave the man’s body.

“You saved me…” she murmured into the air. “He… I don’t think he would have been content with a few slaps this time, he… he was going to kill me.” She finally looked up at Ashlyn. “Thank you.”

“I killed someone,” she gasped out, wiping the bile from her chin.

“He deserved it.” The girl’s face hardened. “Trust me when I say the world is better off without him. You saved my life, really.”

“We… we need to call the police. I, I, I’m gonna have to turn myself in…” she choked, sweat pouring down her forehead, her insides twisting and turning.

“No one will miss him, trust me.” The girl gave him one last look, one of absolute disgust, then turned to Ashlyn. “How… how can I possible repay you?” She inched forward, and when Ash truly looked at her, she saw the thick makeup, the skeletal collarbones exposed by her low-cut dress, the bruises on the inside of her elbows, the eerie vacantness in her dull blue eyes. She bore all the signs of someone who had been forced to grow up to fast, someone who made their living on the street, selling the only thing they truly owned. The girl reached out a hand, but then snatched it back when she felt how hot Ashlyn’s skin was.

“C’mon baby. I owe you my life. Let me make it up to you.”

“You don’t, don’t have to…” she stuttered, her face burning even hotter but for a completely different reason.

“Well then what can I do for you?”

“Just… keep away from guys like him. Keep off the streets, keep safe.”

(Was it any wonder that one day the newspapers would herald her as The Keeper?)

She’d turned herself in, much to the dismay of the girl, or Alex as she would later learn her name was. She’d expected to be arrested, maybe shipped off to a nut house when she tried to explain what had happened, but to her surprise she’d found herself in an immaculate office, one with plush carpeting and a tiny American flag in the pencil cup on the desk.

The blonde woman behind the desk had watched her with eagle eyes, seeming to notice every single movement she made.

She’d learn later that she’d been watching her for years, before even Ashlyn knew what lived inside of her.

So here she was; some called her a hero, others called her a professional nuisance. All anyone knew for certain was that when trouble hit Orlando, she would be there, arms spread wide to welcome it and then wipe it from the streets.

Thank god she looked good in red.

But this fight was different. The petty criminals, the foreign powers, the individuals who fantasized about power, they stood no test against the Keeper. She had made a vow to keep her city safe from peril, and she took it seriously.

But this was a foe Ashlyn wasn’t certain she could outmaneuver.

***

Ali stared up at the starry sky, forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths. The panic was starting to spread throughout her body, her nerves splintering like ice, and when she snatched her hands away from the metal railing it was coated in frost.

This wasn’t the way her life was supposed to go.

When she closed her eyes and thought hard, she could remember back before. She could see birthday parties, sitting on her father’s lap in the backyard of their small home, his laugh as she told him wild stories. Her mother was there, and her brother too, but she was a daddy’s girl at heart. She adored him, wanted to be just like him, right down to the white lab coat he wore as he worked.

Was she imagining the overheard snippets of conversations between her parents? Talk of ‘the government’ and ‘disregarded safety’ and ‘someone always pays the price.’

He had been right. Someone always does. They just hadn’t known how steep the price would be.

She’d been with him at the lab. Against procedure, sure, but her mother was busy and her brother had practice, and anyway, what mischief could a six year old girl really get into? He had settled her onto a stool, her stuffed horse beside her and an array of coloring books on the table in front of her. He’d pressed a kiss to her head and went back to his work, studying the giant reactor and tinkering with the control panel. She’d been too young to understand at the time, but he was facing pressure to somehow double the efficiency that it worked at. He’d tried to explain that while there was always room for improvements, even science had it’s limits, but no one would listen.

She’d grown bored of her coloring pages and climbed down from her stool, wandering to the far end of the room, running her fingers along the rows of glass beakers, carefully picking them up and examining the shapes.

Then there was a commotion behind her, a flurry of curse words, and a horrendous whirling that ended in a bang. She didn’t see they ray of particles that hit her father. By the time she turned around to look, he was already on the ground. She screamed and dropped the glass in her hand, turning to run away-

And then she woke up in the hospital.

She’d been in a coma for nearly three months, barely clinging to life at times. Her father had been buried while she floated, neither here not there.

No one would tell her mother exactly what happened in the basement lab, only reprimanding her for Ali being there. If she hadn’t been, they reasoned, her father wouldn’t have been distracted and made an error. He wouldn’t have died, and she wouldn’t have been hurt.

But no one would explain just how she had been hurt.

The bills piled up while she was in the hospital, and when she finally got to leave, it was not to the sunshine filled home that she had grown up in, but a cramped apartment on the side of the city, the side that was past ‘just getting by’ and lived squarely in poverty.

She went to a different school, where there were too many children and not enough teachers. Her brother had to walk her back from school because their mother was now working three jobs to keep a roof over their heads, to keep any sort of food on the table.

(Her father had worked so hard for the government, why weren’t they helping them now?)

By the time she reached puberty, all hopes of college, of being a scientist like her father, were gone. She would be lucky to graduate high school without getting pregnant. The realization made her want to cry, but she couldn’t. If she thought about it, she hadn’t cried in years. The pain was there, yes, sometimes so loud that it took her to her knees, but she couldn’t cry. It was as if the tears were frozen within her.

Her exhausted mother took her hands in hers, rubbing her fingers with just a hint of a smile. “Cold hands, warm heart,” she reminded her.

“Fucking ice princess,” the manager at the diner where she worked spat after she rebuked his advances at sixteen. He’d followed her into the freezer, blocking her exit. When he tried to grope her from behind, she’d whipped around, slapping him across the cheek. He started at her again and her hands had shot out of their own accord, she’d envisioned pushing him out of her way so she could run, but instead jagged ice had sprouted from her fingertips, one dangerous shard slicing his throat.

(Her life had been so altered by death, but she didn’t think she’d ever have to watch the life leave a man’s eyes.)

That’s how she realized that whatever it was that had killed her father, lived on inside her. She was changed, she was different.

She was dangerous.

The police who were called by the morning manager wrote it off as a botched robbery or a drug deal gone wrong. After all, it was a shitty part of town and there were no security cameras.

Some part of Ali took reassurance in the fact that her body, that had once felt so fragile and breakable, had the capability to defend, to maim.

To kill, if need be.

She still lived in the underbelly of Orlando, the land of dirty streets and broken lights. Her mother was gone now, another casualty of the machine Ali saw working to break down the working man. How was anyone supposed to get ahead, to thrive, to live and dream, when they were running themselves ragged for a master whose boot was always on their throat?

Something had to change.

And that’s how it started. Ali would listen as she walked the tile floors of the diner, listen to the minimum wage employees rant about bosses who wouldn’t okay their overtime but took lavish vacations, listen to wives cry silently and dab at their eyes as not to mess up the makeup layered over the bruises left by their husbands, listen to the news reporters on the grainy TVs tell about another massive bailout of the wealthy at the expense of those barely surviving.

Someone had to stand up and fight back, and Ali was tired of being frozen in fear.

She worked in the cover of night, exploring this body and it’s abilities. She realized she was fast, much faster than your average waitress, and strong too. She began to make the effort to train this body.

If she had been given this curse, then she would turn it upon those who deserved it.

Funny, how the people with power always get to decide the line of good and bad. Ali had never felt that she was bad, just badly wronged. She was just doing her part to right the world, to bring justice, but she was branded a villain, The Ice Queen.

Ali wondered it if it had been her brother who had been altered, if he would have been called The Ice King, or if they only felt the need to gender women.

But then again, The Keeper didn’t seem to have that problem.

They had managed to just miss each other for some time. Ali would slip away just as the streets began to crackle with fire, or would manage to be in a different part of the city altogether. Part of that was thanks to Alex. She could always be counted on to whisper The Keeper’s plans to Ali when she came by with food and money for her and the girls.

(Anyone who said she was evil didn’t see the looks of gratitude on their faces when she was able to give them the money to visit the doctor when they were sick, instead of forcing them to work on their backs for it.)

She had no qualms with The Keeper. She didn’t particularly want to hurt her, and that’s all The Ice Queen was good for: pain, destruction, justice.

In fact, from the interviews she’d watched, she felt a strange kinship with the woman. Who else on earth could say they knew the feeling of your body turning against you?

The fact that she looked so good in red only helped.

When they finally did have to face off, they were evenly matched. When The Ice Queen pressed left, The Keeper volleyed right, the two of them parrying back and forth until they were out of breath. They came to a strange impasse, Ali leaning against a dumpster, the coolness of her hand making the metal creak

“Ready to give in?” the blonde woman had asked, wiping the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand.

Ali’s bones ached with the cold running through them. She flexed her fingers, willing feeling back into them. “Not even close.”

“Y’know it’s too bad.”

“Too bad what?”

“Too bad that you can’t be talked over to the good side. We could really use you.” She shrugged, somehow unaffected of the faint red glow that emitted from her hands. ”Unless maybe you could be. We could go out to dinner and discuss the various pros and cons.”

“Dinner?” Ali asked with a single raised eyebrow.

“Sure. Maybe even a movie,” she added with a grin.

“You seem awful convinced that the side you chose is good,” Ali said quietly.

The Keeper’s face grew somber. “It is. We’re fighting for what’s right.”

“Right for who?”

“For everyone.”

Ali scoffed. “There’s no such thing. What’s right for those in power will always contradict with what’s right for those they exploit.”

“You’re smart,” the hero murmured. “You don’t have to do this.” She held out her hand.

Ali felt herself harden, alarmed at whatever small facet of herself had thawed under her intense stare. “Someone has to.” She threw out her hands, freezing the panes of glass on either side of her until they shattered, then dashed away into the night, disappearing from The Keeper’s sight.

And that’s how she found herself up on Alex’s roof, anxiety rooting her to the spot. She didn’t have time to have… whatever these feelings were. She needed to focus. The city needed her. Her people needed her.

“Ali.”

She turned, seeing one of the other girls, a new girl, Emily, standing in the shadows. “Yes?”

“The food is ready downstairs. If you’re hungry.”

She shook her head slightly. She was never hungry. “Thanks.” Emily took a small step forward, and Ali willed herself not to recoil at the ugly bruise on her cheek. “Who did that?” she asked evenly.

Emily shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“No.” The girls lips turned up in a twisted half grin. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ali. Don’t worry about it.”

She pursed her lips. “I can’t help if I don’t know what happened.”

Emily began her retreat into the shadows. “How could you possibly help me?” Then she was gone.

Ali gritted her teeth. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything. But The Ice Queen could make him pay.

***

The Keeper groaned as she sank into one of Alex’s dining room chairs. Her body was always tight and pained after a fight, struggling to find equilibrium after the fire had roared through her bloodstream.

“Are you hungry?”

She made herself smile at Alex. “I always am.”

A plate was slid in front of her and she groaned gratefully, immediately digging in. She was given a glass of ice water and she greedily sucked it down.

“Long day at the office, dear?” Alex teased.

“You could say that.” Her hands began to massage the knots from her shoulders, soothing the hot skin beneath her fingers.

“It’ll all be okay. Some day.”

“You’re awfully optimistic.”

“Of course I am. I have you, don’t I?”

The Keeper grimaced. “But you’re stuck here…”

“I work for myself. I take care of my girls. We’re safe, for the most part. I know when to shut my mouth and be grateful.”

“You could have more, though.”

“Could,” Alex shrugged. She combed her fingers through the short, blonde locks that were matted with sweat and ash.

There was a movement in the doorway and they both looked up instinctually. A young girl with long blonde hair and a badly bruised face stared carefully back.

“She said she’s not hungry.”

Alex shrugged. “I didn’t figure she would be. She rarely is, but it’s still nice to ask.”

The girl nodded and quickly retreated from the small kitchen. Ashlyn glanced back behind her. “How’d she get that shiner?”

“How do you think?”

“She new?”

“Mhm. From Portland, I think.”

“Portland.” The Keeper shook her head. “How the hell did she end up here?”

“I don’t ask questions.”

“Who wasn’t hungry?”

Alex pulled her hands from her shoulders, crossing to refill her glass with more water. “One of the girls.”

“Why isn’t she hungry? She sick?”

Alex gave a small smile, setting the glass down. “Depends on who you ask.”

“Lex.” When she didn’t answer, The Keeper sat back, crossing her arms. “A new girl?”

She gave a non-committal hum.

“Someone I’ve met?”

This time she laughed, clamping a hand over her mouth a moment later. “Just drop it.”

“Alex-“

“Ashlyn.”

The use of her birth name gave her pause, made her realize that she was on the brink of something big. “Why…” her eyes darted around the room, putting all of the pieces together. Suddenly she came to her feet, bumping the table and making water slosh out of her glass. “She’s here?!”

“Sit down-”

“You know her?!”

“Ash-”

“She’s dangerous-”

“No, she’s not!” Alex snapped. “Not to us anyway. She takes care of us.”

“I take care of you-”

“Who do you think paid for the food you’re eating?”

She looked down at the table, then shook the thought away. “She’s evil.”

Alex gave her head a quick shake. “She’s not.”

The Keeper could feel the heat beginning to pulse through her body again. She began to pace the kitchen, her mind consumed with visions of the other woman, her dark hair tied up in a high bun, her brown eyes flashing. “Where is she?”

“Already gone.”

“Goddamn it! I’m tired of being two steps behind!”

“Have you ever considered that it keeps you safer?”

She turned, her eyes narrowing. “You… you’re in cahoots with her?”

Alex snorted. “Cahoots?”

“You’ve been telling her my plans! My location! You could have gotten me killed!” The betrayal curled in her stomach like lava.

“I’ve kept you alive!” Alex snapped back. “Yes, okay? I’ve told her where you’ll be, but it’s so that she could be out of the way. She doesn’t want to fight you!”

“Well then she shouldn’t have become a cold-blooded murderer!”

“She’s cold-blooded, but not in the way you mean. And she’s no more a murderer than you!”

The Keeper took a step backwards as if she had been slapped. “I’m not… all I’ve ever wanted is to help people.”

“So does she.”

“She’s… a villain! She’s actively working against the government!”

“Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it’s the government that’s working against her?”

Ashlyn stared out the window above the sink, watching the streetlamp outside flicker. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”

Alex threaded her arms around her waist, resting her chin on her shoulder from behind. “You’re not so different, the two of you. Not really. You’re both fighting for a better tomorrow… you just have different ideas of what that looks like.”

The Keeper shrugged away from her grasp. “I have to do what’s right.”

She didn’t miss the way Alex’s eyes hardened. “And what is that, exactly?”

***

She had found him. Emily may not have wanted to tell her what had happened, but just days later she was in the office of a very important banker, watching as he begged for his life.

She stared down at him coldly. “And why should I? I know what you are, what you do. Do you have any good reason for why I shouldn’t kill you?”

“Please, please…”

“He has a family.” She whirled around, finding The Keeper in the doorway. Her arms were resting peacefully at her sides, but Ali could see the faint red glow, betraying the power that she could access at a moment’s notice.

“Why are you here?”

“Because you don’t get to hand out justice as you see fit.”

Ali scoffed. “And you do?”

This was enough to give The Keeper pause. “He has a family,” she finally repeated.

“So? So do they.”

“Emily and the rest of Alex’s girls?”

She didn’t answer.

“I know that’s why you’re doing this. And if… if Alex is right, and you’re not evil, then you know that this isn’t the answer. Killing is never the answer. You don’t have to kill him.”

“What if I do? Then will your answer be to kill me?” The Keeper took a deep breath as she stepped forward, and Ali raised a hand in warning, the other still facing the banker now sniveling on his vintage rug. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Is this really all about Emily?”

“Do you think she’s the first? You think he hasn’t smacked around hundreds of girls, knowing that he had all the power and they had none? You think he’s any better to his employees? He’s a burden on the human race,” she spat, turning to glare at him over her shoulder. As she turned back, she was The Keeper in motion.

She jabbed, and Ali ducked. She spun, and Ali kicked. Suddenly, hot hands had a hold of her blue jacket, and they were both tumbling through the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the street.

They both grunted upon impact, but the good thing about being a freak of nature was that it was very, very hard to die.

Ali came to her feet, sending a spike of ice towards The Keeper, but she rolled out of the way. She leapt to the side, avoiding the licks of flames falling from her fingers, and sent a car spinning through the air, catching the blonde in the shoulder and sending her flying.

Fire met ice.

Ice met fire.

A shard of ice slashed the other woman’s cheek, and red blood began to roll down her cheek, saturating her uniform.

“He has a daughter,” The Keeper suddenly grunted, staggering to the side to avoid Ali’s onslaught, and her mind was filled with memories of her father. Of how he loved her, cared for her, wanted nothing but goodness for her, but had been stolen away from her. Grief ripped through her chest and she threw her arms out with an inhuman scream, “THAT’S ENOUGH!”

Glittering chains of ice flew through the air, wrapping around The Keeper’s body and bringing her to a standstill. Panic entered her eyes as she realized that she was caught.

“So what? You’re going to kill me? You’re going to slaughter me because I got in your way?”

Ali’s face twisted. “No.”

“Maybe you should! Because I won’t rest until I stop you, until I rid the streets of darkness!”

“I’m not the darkness.” She turned and pointed up to the window they’d tumbled out of, the shattered windowpane reflecting the fires ravishing the street. “He is.”

“I won’t let you kill him!”

“Do you not have doubts?” Ali asked suddenly. “Do you always live in this black and white world where everything is good and bad, right and wrong?”

“I have to keep fighting! Because if I don’t-“ her voice suddenly broke off, she sniffed as if there were tears stuck in her throat. “If I don’t… who will?”

Ali walked forward, slowly becoming more and more exhausted by the energy required to keep the chains from melting away from the woman’s burning skin.

“Enough,” she repeated, her voice hoarse. “I said, that’s enough now.” She walked until she was right in front of her, so close that she could look into her eyes. She stared into them, searching for something that even she wasn’t sure of, then wrapped her arms around The Keeper in an awkward kind of hug. The woman’s skin was nearly scalding, but she had to admit that for the first time in living memory, she finally felt something close to warm. The other woman stiffened at the contact, then sighed, relaxing slightly as if Ali’s cold touch felt just as relieving. “Easy. You’ve been hurt enough for one day.”

Her words seemed to renew something in The Keeper, and she began to thrash again, but the toll of the fight was evident in the way she quickly sagged, exhausted. Ali sank to her knees, bringing her with her, and they stayed locked together, a tangle of limbs as The Keeper’s chest heaved.

“You hurt me,” she finally hissed, the pain hitting more fully as her adrenaline dipped. “You caused this.”

“Shh…” Ali murmured, her chest seizing at the pointed hatred in the other woman’s voice. “You’ve fought so bravely, but just listen to me. There’s no shame in surrendering and living another day, alright?”

“I’ll never-” she began, but Ali cut her off.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Despite who you’ve chosen to align yourself with, I, I think you might actually be good. And I don’t want to be responsible for taking that away, no matter what you think of me.”

She could feel the woman begin to weave in and out of consciousness, her eyes fluttering against her neck as she fought to stay awake. “I’ll fight you,” she slurred.

“Shh…. Rest. Today is done.” Before she could stop herself, she turned her head, pressing a kiss to the woman’s forehead, her lips tingling at the unfamiliar warmth, and the other woman whimpered. “You’ve done enough.” She watched as The Keeper’s eyes finally slid shut. She clumsily lowered her to the cracked street, her own body racked with exhaustion as well. She stared down at The Keeper, at her cheekbones, her hair, the long lines of her body beneath her red suit. She would need care, that’s certain. She would have to get her to Alex’s, leave the girls money to get her whatever she needed. And as for how to get that money…

She turned her eyes back to the bank.

Once back in the office, she found the bank president where she had left him, although by now his pants were soiled.

“Please,” he begged.

She stared at him coldly, then without another word ice flew from her fingertips, and blood splattered the walls.

***

The Keeper slowly came to consciousness on Alex’s couch. “What…”

“Sorry, all the beds are being used,” Alex said with a slight grin. She laid a wet washcloth against her forehead, eyeing the steam that was subsequently let off.

“How did… I was… we were…” her eye finally came into focus. “Where is she?”

“Who?” Alex asked nonchalantly.

“The Ice Queen,” she spat.

Alex turned back to look at her. “She brought you here then left. She wasn’t exactly going to hang around.”

“But… why?”

“I imagine she thought you would try to fight her as soon as you woke up.”

“No,” she growled through gritted teeth. “Why did she bring me here?”

“So I could watch after you. So someone else wouldn’t find you. So the public’s trust in you wouldn’t be shaken.” She smiled at her furrowed brow. “I keep trying to tell you she’s not all bad. You’d think you’d believe me since she just saved your life.”

The Keeper raised an eyebrow. “Saved me from herself, you mean.”

Alex shrugged, rewetting the washcloth. “She could have killed you, Ash. But she didn’t.”

The Keeper stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked back at her. “You sent Emily to her on purpose. You knew she would see the bruise and seek vengeance.”

“I did.”

“You’re as guilty of his death as she is.”

She leaned in closer, meeting her eye. “I have no problem keeping that on my conscience. If you hurt one of my girls, you pay.”

“You could go to the police.”

“Oh Ash,” she sighed, brushing the hair away from her forehead. “After all this time, you still manage to be so naïve.”

The movement sparked a memory in her mind. Of smooth, hard lips brushing against her forehead, feeling refreshingly cool against her feverish skin.

That couldn’t have really happened. After all, The Ice Queen was a criminal, a murderer, a villain. She had no reason to treat her with such tenderness.

And yet… she had.

She avoided Alex’s eyes, looking at the ceiling instead. “I can’t let her get away with this,” she argued. “She murdered someone. I can’t let that go.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

She didn’t reply, instead turning to lookout the window, wondering what her next brush with The Ice Queen would bring.


End file.
